


Locked up with You

by Doctorinblue



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, Blood, Crime Fighting, Crime Scenes, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Past Abuse, Rating May Change, Slow Burn, Tags May Change, Undercover as a Couple
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:07:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27111655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doctorinblue/pseuds/Doctorinblue
Summary: Yasmin Khan is a top-rate detective who has just been handed a high profile case and assigned a brand new partner to help her solve it - Detective Jo Smith.  When a second murder is reported, and then another, the pair soon realize they are up against something far bigger and worse than they'd imagined, and have to race against time to solve the crimes - while trying to come to terms with their feelings for each other - before it's too late.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Comments: 19
Kudos: 33





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not am not a detective, or a doctor, and there will likely be inaccuracies in this story, please forgive me for them. If you feel a tag is needed, please do let me know. I do not intend to include anything I consider especially graphic (as far as gore goes) into this story, but I understand that my definition might not be the same as others, so please don't hesitate to tell me if something is needed. Also, this takes place in America, so everything will be all *waves hand* American or whatever.

Yaz reached out into the darkness, crawled her fingers across the bedside table until they connected with the cool metal base on her bedside table. Tapping it twice, she groaned as the light flashed on, the too-bright bulb flooded the room and her senses. Leaning over, she checked the bedside table only to find it bare. She blinked, tried to recall where she could have ended up tossing her cell in her exhausted stupor.

She could hear it. Ringing and ringing, someone on the other end insistent that she stopped sleeping and got back to work. There - she could see the dim light from her jeans pocket where she'd let it slide to the floor with her pants when she'd stripped off her work clothes before falling into bed.

_Careless, Yaz. Careless._

Still, better here than on the job where it counted.

Hanging half off the bed, she stretched until she could yank the still ringing phone from her jeans pocket and glanced at the screen. Damn. All the exhaustion she had just been feeling, and there had been quite a lot of it after the last week, burned up when that first bit of adrenaline hit her veins. She swiped to unlock the screen, worked herself back onto the bed as she pressed the phone to her ear - trying to brace herself for the words she knew she'd hear, because if it was urgent enough for Jones to call her at three in the morning it must have been about a murder.

“Khan, here,” she said, sitting up. 

She listened and jotted down the address on her notepad. Thanking Jones, she hung up. Yaz dressed quickly, pulled on her boots, and a jacket that she'd have to shed when the sun had been up long enough to chase off the morning chill. She slid her badge on, adding her gun to her holster last, and headed down the stairs, feeling more like detective Yasmin Khan by the moment. She wore the title, the persona like personal armor, and she knew that it suited her well. There was something comforting about it all, about being able to put it on and leave behind all the feelings she would never allow to follow her to her job. 

Once again, she felt thankful for that job. With all the bad she had seen, did see, she tried to remain a beacon of hope. For the victim, and every family member who looked to her with lost eyes, needing answers and feeling shattered...well, she could help mend those broken pieces. She could find those answers, and justice, give a voice back to someone who had theirs taken away. She honored their memories by doing her job, and it drove her to be the best, to put work before everything in her life.

Yaz climbed into her car, forgoing the coffee pot in favor of being the first detective on the scene. She trusted Jones not to call Miles in, even if the case ended up too big for her, but Miles had a habit of showing up places he wasn't wanted or needed in the first place. She refused to let him compromise her work by being arrogant, by not caring enough about the evidence or the witnesses. And sure, maybe some of it stemmed from what had happened, but it didn't make it less true.

She pulled out, drove to the scene in silence, focused on the address. It sounded familiar. Maybe she'd spent time there as a beat cop? Nice neighborhood, she noted as she pulled behind the line of marked cop cars on the side of the road. They'd taped it off already, and she could see light pouring out the open front door, and a group of young people gathered off to the side whispering nervously, some rubbing at their arms, trying to fight back the cold in their too-short sleeves and dresses. Yaz slipped out, headed towards the tape, and flashed her badge. The cop, one she didn't know, lifted up the tape for her. She nodded her thanks, then stopped and looked back at him.

"Get them some blankets," Yaz said, nodding to the group. "We'll get better answers if they aren't freezing."

She turned without another word, heard the officer calling to someone else about blankets and that was enough for her to feel confident that by the time she made it outside she'd have witnesses tired enough, scared enough, and just warm enough to be compliant. She hoped. 

"Okay, Jones?" she asked - slipping shoe covers and gloves on before she stepped into the wide hallway.

"Okay," he agreed, waiting on her to move in closer before he shared the details. 

He'd already given her the condensed version of course, but she wanted to hear it again, now that she was here and could focus on the scene before her. 

She noted the body was about halfway down the hall...nearly exactly half she imagined if she were to measure it out. Was that important? She added it to the list, moved on. There was a staircase to the right, leading up to a second floor, and likely more rooms in the back. The floors were hardwood, and though she couldn't place the type of wood she imagined it hadn't come cheap. There were no pictures on the wall, no art of any sort, no plants or sculptures. No indication that anyone lived here, outside of the scattered and dropped cups, the bottles of beer, some which had been tipped onto their sides - likely when the murder had happened, or when the witnesses had been rounded up after.

So, a party then? That seemed to be the most likely setting. A group of twenty-somethings who had had too much to drink and just a little bit too much fun last night. Motive? She doubted it was robbery, judging by the vast amount of witnesses and the fact that the large house seemed to be mostly devoid of anything to steal (at least from first impressions). Beyond that though, it was much too early to speculate.

Working her way down the hall, Yaz stepped over the cups and bottles, avoided tracking through the many spills. When she'd reached Jones' side, she knelt by their victim, focused only on getting that first impression of the scene, of the body, before anyone altered it too much, before her mind had time to be drawn into any deeper conclusions. It had always felt much easier to get it right the first time than to shed pieces of false information later.

Their victim was male, young, college-age, or possibly just beyond. His face was pale, lips paler still - blood loss then? He wore a nice button-down shirt, jeans, boots, all of which were tidy and name brand, giving her the impression that he did actually have the money to be living in this neighborhood. The next thing she noticed was the blood, or rather, the lack of it. Normally, in a crime scene like this, it'd be the first thing she noticed. The smell would be hanging sickly in the air, and it would be drying around the body, on too many surfaces, but not here. In fact, the only blood she saw was drying faintly over to the two gashes in his shirt, and she couldn't smell anything beyond the beer and sweat and the many types of perfumes and colognes that hung heavy in the air despite the door being open and the witnesses long outside.

When she felt satisfied with the first pass over the body, she leaned back onto her heels and looked up at Jones, waited until the flipped his notebook over to prompt, “Well?”

"Twenty-two- year old male," Jones said. "Two stab wounds, but they've been covered by some sort of glue...or film, not sure yet. But, I think that's why we’re not seeing more blood. Um....the coroner hasn't arrived on the scene...asked them to give you a few minutes first, know how you like to look around. Our victim was holding a party here last night, with about fifty of his closest friends...none of which saw anything but him collapsing here in the hall. I did a preliminary sweep of the house and back garden, didn't find any other blood, but I left the rest for you. Figured you'd rather I man the door in case we had unwanted guests.

"Yeah, thanks," Yaz said, nodding.

She swallowed a few times, refused to throw a glance over her shoulder, no matter how her mind screamed at her to ensure that he hadn't actually shown up. She was safe. She refused to give in to that fear. She refused.

Instead, she studied the body once more, worked her way through the limited facts. No had seen anything....she'd heard the implication in Jones' tone, understood all too well how unlikely it was, even with all the drinking, that the first they'd seen of anything out of sorts was their friend collapsing in the hall. Even if it didn't turn out that one or more of them were the murderers, it was near impossible that one of them didn't see something that would help lead her to the person that was. So, with that in mind, she prepared herself for the arduous task of finding that memory inside her witnesses, that one spark within the inferno of the moments leading up to his death  
Well...Yaz had always worked best under pressure anyway...

“Found this.”

She looked back up at Jones, who was holding out a small folded piece of paper. She took it, unfolding it carefully. There, in the center of the page was a small, printed, number one. She glanced at Jones, back at the paper, and then back to him once more.  
He shrugged.

“Not sure, yet, boss.”

She sighed, nodded, and handed the paper back over to him, but kept the image of the one fresh inside her mind.

“Do we have an ID?” 

"Remy Callen," said a voice from behind her.

Yaz twisted to see a woman in the doorway, gloving up, and working her way towards Yaz and Jones.

“Remy Callen,” Jones repeated. “As in Senator Callen’s only son.”

Yaz exhaled slowly. She could see her dreams of this being an easy case going up in smoke right before her eyes. A senator's kid would get top priority...would warrant backup whether Yaz agreed to it or not, and she couldn't settle the uneasy feeling she got in her stomach as the woman, a pretty blonde, finished making her way over to them.

"Detective Jo Smith," she said, nodding down to Yaz, meeting Jones' eye. "Just transferred in....and I've been assigned to assist you with the case, assuming you're Yasmin Khan, that is."

"I am," Yaz said, her eyes darting up to Jones who refused to meet her gaze. "Could have mentioned something, Jones...."

"High profile case," Jones said on a shrug.

She sighed and glanced over at Detective Smith - Jo? - and studied her as she knelt down beside Yaz. She held herself with confidence, had moved over to them with practiced ease, and seemed competent enough of the surface. She wore a light jacket, gray, over a printed shirt that Yaz had only caught a glimpse of, and jeans that half-covered her boots. Casual, but professional, kind of like Yaz's own clothing of choice. Her hair was cut short, nearly shoulder-length, darker at the roots, and she was, as Yaz was slightly alarmed to notice, even prettier up close. She swallowed, darted her eyes away as if one of the other people in the room, one of the people whose job it was to notice other people acting shifty, would somehow latch on to that very thought.

_Get it together, Khan._

“Catch me up?”

Yaz ran through the list of facts, watched Jo as she took careful notes, searched the body for herself, and studied the number for a few moments. Yaz withheld nothing from her - if she really had to work with someone, she was sure as hell going to make sure that that someone was as well informed as she was.

When she'd finished, Jo flipped her notebook closed again and gave Yaz a fraction of a smile. For just a moment, she looked as tired as Yaz felt - Yaz wanted to say something, something to help build camaraderie, something to show sympathy, anything, really, but the moment slipped away from her before she could decide on the right order of the words, and Jo was back on task, looking down the hall and then meeting Yaz's eye again.

“Where do you want me?”

Strictly speaking, she wasn't Jo's boss, but she couldn't bear the thought of handing over a fresh crime scene to someone she barely knew. And maybe that made her a bit of a control freak, but she knew the kind of job that she did, she couldn't guarantee the same for anyone else, including Jo...at least not yet. She shifted her weight again, her knees aching from being held in the same position for too long, and finally looked away from where she had felt trapped in those hazel eyes. 

“Mind handling witnesses? Maybe we can get some of them cleared and out of the cold.”

"You got it," Jo said. Yaz watched her stand out of the corner of her eye, stared at the blank wall in front of her. "Catch up with you after?"

"Right," Yaz said, nodding, not quite ready to think on how much time she'd likely be spending in Jo's company for the next short while. "Thanks."

Jo nodded, worked her way down the hall. When she'd reached the end, Yaz finally trusted herself to look, watched her toss her gloves into the trash, and head out to do her job without so much as a look back at her. Yaz took it as a sign of trust, of good faith, that she would take care of the crime scene to the best of her ability. Yaz owed her the same courtesy. She stood up, nodded at Jones, and started to work body outwards, focused only on her work, on the one thing in the whole universe that made her feel complete.

\--

Jo had spent the next couple hours interviewing the witnesses and ended up feeling half-frozen by the time she'd dismissed the last one - leaving her with far too few answers for both Detective Khan and her. She'd listened carefully to them all, had taken down each detail of their night into her notes, even if those details had largely consisted of them seeing nothing out of the ordinary. No, they'd been far too distracted by the alcohol, the hookups, the music, and so on until Remy had collapsed in the hall and nearly fifty people had shifted from drunk to adrenaline sober in moments.

One of the young men had felt for a pulse, but not a single person reported anything that related to the cause of death being stabbing, nothing about seeing a knife or the wounds, not a single accidental slip to implicate anyone of anything. They had, according to every single one of them, done no investigating of their own, made no attempts at CPR, had only scattered away from their now dead friend, and called emergency services. If this were true, it did, at the very least, decrease the chance that they'd contaminated the scene more than the party itself already had.

She watched the last witness climb into a car, scanned her notes once more while rolling her shoulders. Her whole back had tightened up, felt like a solid wall of muscle from the hours standing there interviewing. She turned back to the door, prepared herself to go back in and continuing working, instead of getting a cup of coffee and finding a warm place to defrost - two things she'd likely not get to enjoy until Detec-

As if on cue, Detective Khan - should she call her Yasmin? Or Khan? How stiff of a professional relationship should she be expecting from her new partner? - stepped outside, rolling her neck and glancing up at the sky. Jo followed her eyes, found the sun inching over the horizon, painting the morning in shades of pink, the faint heat promising that the chill would fade by afternoon. Now, though, she watched Yasmin zip up her jacket, brush the loose strands of hair away from her face, and for just a moment, despite all the horrible things around them, how they were meeting, she couldn't help but notice how beautiful the soft colors of dawn had made Yasmin.

She pushed the thought away at once. Of course, she didn't even mean to think it, had sworn off women in the first place, and she sure didn't intend to take notice of her brand new partner, however attractive said partner might be. Drawing in a long breath, she chalked up the lapse in reason to all the sleepless nights of late, to her recurring bouts of loneliness since Clara had left, and when she felt safe enough with herself to look at Yasmin again she felt almost back to normal.

She let out another long breath, ready to get moving, ready to compare their notes. Maybe after, if she were very lucky, they'd find a few minutes for that cup of coffee after all. She started back across the yard, ducking under the side of the tape at nearly the same time as someone else entered the scene. Jo glanced at him, feeling an immediate sense of discomfort that she couldn't define. He was conventionally handsome, with light eyes, a shadow of a beard, and well-defined muscles beneath his too-tight long-sleeved shirt - apparently caring more for vanity than warmth. He spared her the briefest glance, and then flashed his badge in the direction of the nearest uniformed officer, before heading straight for Yasmin.

Jo's eyes darted to Yasmin, who went rigid at the sight of him. Her eyes flickered around, settled on Jo for only a moment, before looking back at the man, and Jo wasn't sure what message she was supposed to be receiving, if any, but she felt certain that Yasmin was truly and properly afraid of this man. This bothered Jo, for all the obvious reasons, but beyond that, she couldn't line it up with the woman she'd just seen inside, all confidence and strength. What did it take to break that woman? Jo gritted her teeth, certain she knew the answer.

It made her skin prickle, she couldn't sit still. Something about seeing fear in people had always brought out something in her, even when they didn't ask for help, even if they likely wouldn't ask for help, she'd always felt the need to try. It was the reason she'd earned her medical degree, and when that had failed her, it was the reason she'd become a detective. So, drawn in by her very nature, Jo moved closer to the pair of them, her notebook in her hand, pen clicked and ready to use, keeping up a pretense of waiting to report to Yasmin.

She'd missed the first part of the conversation, briefly wondered if she should be interfering in a stranger's business, but then again, wasn't that part of her job... 

"This isn't your case, Miles," Yasmin said. "It was assigned to me, and I would appreciate it if you left now."

He reached out, grabbed her arm, his fingertips digging into the leather jacket Yasmin wore. She tensed up, drew in a breath, and Jo watched her throat bob a few times.

"You'll need a partner for this, Yaz," he said, his hand tightening a fraction farther. “You know it's too big for you."

"She has a partner," Jo said, sidestepping him. "It's me, I'm her partner." Relief flooded Yasmin's features, and Jo knew she'd made the right choice. "Detective Khan, I've finished the interviews, can we talk? Only, I'm freezing, maybe we could grab a cup of coffee while we do."

The hand released Yasmin's arm, and Jo stepped in closer to her, standing tall. She'd only planned it out so far as giving him a glare until he left, leading Yasmin off herself, to somewhere that felt safer, getting that coffee, and comparing notes. She'd even refrain from asking about the situation for a solid minute or two before her nosy nature got the best of her, but Miles only smiled at Jo, ran his eyes up and down her. 

“Miles Murphy,” he said, holding out a hand. “Most just call me Miles. What do they call you?”

"Detective," Jo said, glancing at his hand, the same one that had just been wrapped around Yasmin's arm. She felt a brief, but intense desire to remove it from his person. "Or Doctor. Smith in a pinch."

He looked at Yasmin and shrugged, dropping his hand. “Well, I’ll be seeing you. Soon, Yaz. Soon.”

And with that, he left, and Jo watched his back until he'd gone out of sight, kept her watch until she heard Yasmin exhale beside her. 

“Thanks.”

Jo nodded. “Want to talk about it?”

"Not now," Yasmin said, looking at her and smiling. It looked forced; Jo hated the way she blinked a few extra times before speaking again, “Let's get you somewhere warmer, I'll drive to the coffee shop, you can tell me about the witnesses on the way."


	2. Chapter 2

Yaz pulled into the lot, parking next to the blue car that she now knew belonged to Jo. They'd moved it here, after their first cup of coffee, Yaz agreeing to drive the rest of the day, which probably had nothing and everything to do with her need to have a fraction of control over the situation she'd been thrust into. She tapped her fingers against the steering wheel and tried to keep her eyes locked ahead of her, tried to hold onto the voice on the other end of the line. Her mind, however, being more traitorous than usual, kept working its way back to Jo, who still hadn't exited her car, still hadn't taken the smell of fall that seemed to cling to her and left Yaz alone she could fully exhale.

She waited another moment, and when the door still didn't open, she glanced over, at last, her fingers stilling. Jo had her hands pressed right to the heater vent, one curled around the other, the cup of coffee she'd insisted they stop for - Yaz had opted for a hot chocolate in the hopes that she might get a full nights rest for once - was pinned between her thighs.

Her eyes were unfocused, staring into the nothingness of deep thought. Yaz didn't want to be the one to pull her away from that place, however eager she might be to get home, however much she needed to have a few uninterrupted hours of sleep to get her head on right again. She watched her for another moment, debated on saying something, anything, but she only managed to bite the inside her lip and wonder what had caused Jo's mind to slip so far away from the present.

Did it have anything to do with her? No, of course not. Yaz shook herself. More than likely, Jo was thinking about the case, simply lost in a haze of questions and mental recreation. Probably she was just trying to figure out how to put the right facts into the right slots, working it all like a giant, exceptionally morbid, puzzle.

A puzzle they’d be doing together for the foreseeable future…

“Boss?” Jones asked, on the other end of the line. “You there?”

Yaz blinked a few times, jerked her eyes away from Jo to focus on a safer spot, somewhere in the distance. She couldn't keep doing this. She knew that. Her ability to focus, even when everything came crashing down around her head was one of the reasons she'd been assigned this case in the first place. Feelings, personal life, it all came second. She couldn't lose that edge now, not here, not just because a pretty woman happened to be assigned as her partner...

_Keep it together, Khan..._

She wanted to blame Jo, lash out at her, demand she just...please, please, get out of the car until she could get some rest. Tomorrow, tomorrow she'd be back at normal. It's ridiculous though, she can't blame Jo for being beautiful, so she let the feeling go as quickly as it came on her, and shifted her attention back to the phone.

“Here,” Yaz confirmed. “Say that again, bad connection.”

What was one more lie with the way today had already gone anyway?

“New skin,” Jones said. “You know, the bandage thing, cover up a wound.”

“Right,” Yaz said. “That’s what was used on his stab wounds?”

“Yeah,” Jones said, and she could feel him holding back a sigh. She sat more upright, reminded herself she was exhausted – mentally and physically, and she could hardly be blamed if her mind kept slipping off task.

“Thanks,” she said when Jones offered no more follow-up. “Check in later.”

“You got it, boss,” Jones said, a pause then, “Everything going okay with the new girl.”

Yaz’s eyes slipped to her, then away again nearly at once.

“Yeah, fine,” she said. “Bye.”

When she hung up, tucked away her phone, and turned back to Jo she wasn’t surprised to find her looking back at her.

"What was used on the wounds?" Jo asked.

“New skin,” Yaz said, tipping her head back onto her headrest. She reached up, rubbed at her forehead, the beginnings of a headache forming. “The liquid bandage…we’ll look more into it tomorrow. Good work today, Jo. Real good. I’ll see you tomorrow, first thing.”

Please don't call me before then. Yaz didn't say it out loud; she hoped the exhaustion in her features said it for her, that Jo got the message anyway. Once again, at the thought, the feelings of guilt burned bright hot in her stomach. She hated to send Jo away with a good job; she hated not going home and giving the case the extra hours it silently demanded of her. She pushed the feeling away, ignored the growing lump inside her chest, though it threatened to cut off her air supply. If she didn't want tomorrow to be a repeat of today she had to let it go, she had to let herself sleep enough hours to feel human again, and tomorrow she'd be ready to take on the world, to be the Yasmin Khan that they all expected her to be.

"Right," Jo said, picking at the top of her cup, and then looking up at Yaz again. "Um...Yasmin. Yaz, I mean. About earlier, before I go, did you want to talk about that? You know, with Miles."

As if there could have been any doubt what she'd meant in the first place. Yaz shifted, the space inside the car seemed to be shrinking around them. She'd been hoping, trying, to avoid this question all day, thought, clearly foolishly, that they were still too close to strangers for Jo to be willing to return to the subject.

Still, she’d been right there. She’d seen it all, and if Yaz said nothing then the speculation – even if she suspected Jo would keep it close to her chest – would only grow larger.

“He’s an ex,” she said, forcing a shrug, hoping it came off casual enough to hide the fact she felt sick to her stomach. “Not a great one. Clearly.”

Jo waited for her to elaborate, and maybe it'd be some sort of catharsis to just spill the story between them, but she wasn't ready for that yet. She wasn't ready to heal, not if healing meant she'd first have to acknowledge, have to come face to face with the wounds he'd left behind in her. She glanced over at Jo, found her hazel eyes soft in the lights of the parking lot. Yaz held her breath, begged it would be enough, and she was certain that her exhale of relief was audible when Jo gave her a quick nod. Yaz could have hugged her for it if that wouldn't have just been opening her up to a brand new set of issues she'd eventually have to deal with. Instead, she focused on breathing, clenched her hand around the wheel as Jo reached out for the door handle. 

"Wait," Yaz said, suddenly, seeming to surprise both of them. She hadn't planned to say anything, but she found she just couldn't quite send Jo away with that look on her face. "Um, I just wanted...you said, earlier, with Miles...you're a doctor?"

“Was,” Jo said, nodding and looking back at her, settling back into the seat again though her hand remained on the door. “Well, still am. Just not practicing…as you can see.”

Yaz nodded. She hadn't exactly been forthcoming with her own issues, and she had no idea what kind of feelings Jo might have for the work she had once done - if she'd parted with it on good terms or not. Still...she'd always been a bit too curious for her own good. 

“Why’d you leave,” she said, after a moment. “That is….if you don’t mind telling me.”

“To tell you the truth,” Jo said. “I’m not sure. Wanted a change of pace, like a challenge too much for my own good….mostly, I was looking for a new way to help people, the old job…it all got too much with the bureaucracy of it all.”  
“And you don’t….feel that in police work?” Yaz asked, raising her eyebrows.

“Fair point,” Jo agreed and glanced out the window. “I guess I just feel freer here. I better get going, you look like you’re about to faint on the spot…can you get home okay?”

“Be fine,” Yaz said, swallowing her yawn. “Thanks...”

Jo nodded, opened the door, and slid out, she leaned down gave Yaz a small smile. 

“See you tomorrow, boss,” she said, and the smile grew, teasing and light and Yaz had to roll her eyes, even if the word hit her differently than it ever had when Jones said it.

“Jo?” Yaz said. “Glad you’re here.”

“Thanks, Yaz,” Jo said, and Yaz continued to stare ahead until the door shut until she was sure Jo was gone. 

When she felt safe enough to do it, she glanced to her right, watched as Jo climbed into her car, and started it up. She darted her eyes back to the front, waited until Jo had backed out of her space and only then did Yaz put her own care in reverse and start her journey home. 

\--

Jo threw back the sheets on her bed, climbed up, and tucked them in around her waist. She dropped her head back against the headboard, closed her eyes. She hated the silence, the way it seemed to grow larger in moments of stillness. She hated the way the air suddenly became too thick to get a full breath, and more than anything else, she hated that anytime she found herself alone all the hope inside her threatened to jump ship the moment she showed any sign of weakness. Swallowing around a growing lump in her throat, she pushed down the surging feelings, tried to focus on keeping her breathing normal.

She could do this.

This job had been the right choice, Jo reminded herself. With a lot of luck, her new partner might even become her new friend. The thought drew up the corners of Jo's mouth. She had little doubt Yaz would be a loyal and fierce friend. So, the move here had been for the best, even if it had been, essentially, her running away from her problems, away from the ghost of a woman who lived but still haunted Jo's halls and mind all the same. She'd had to leave it behind, had to move on. She couldn't have stated in that state or state of mind a single day longer. No, this, all of this, had truly been for the best.

She sighed. Maybe if she repeated a few more times she might finally fully believe herself.

She glanced over at her nightstand, eager to find something to take her out of her feelings. The usual stack of books was there, but in the dim light of her sadness, they'd lost their vibrancy, looked cold and unappealing. Instead of flipping their pages, she settled on the remote, scooping it up and flipping on the TV. Jo bumped the volume up louder and louder until her ears protested, but she'd finally managed to drown out the voice taunting her from the recesses of her mind.

Jo slid down in bed, pulled the blankets up to her chin, and closed her eyes once more. If there were any mercy in the universe she wouldn't be dreaming of her new partner tonight. Even more so than the murder, which alone would haunt her all around the edges for the rest of her life, she couldn't bear to think about Yaz tonight. She wouldn't dream about Yaz tonight. She refused.

\--

She heard music, somewhere beyond her dream, somewhere beyond the documentary she'd fallen asleep to hours ago. Groaning, Jo lifted her head, forced her eyes open, and tried to blink away the cobwebs that were clouding up her thought process. She knew that noise...Oh! She reached out, flipped on her lamp, and scooped up her phone. Flipping it, she looked at the caller ID.

Yaz. 

She'd added her name and number to her personal phone as well - with Yaz's permission of course - if a bit too eagerly. Still, it had been nice, with a new phone and a new life, to add a single number in there that wasn't just for work...even if Jo didn't know yet if she'd ever feel comfortable enough to use it for anything else.

Jo shook her head, tried to recapture her focus. The person calling her was not potential friend Yaz at the moment, and she had to act accordingly. She pressed the screen, brought the phone up to her ear.

“Yaz?”

"Jo," Yaz said. "It's Yaz."

At least she sounded less exhausted, Jo noted.

"I'm here," Jo said, pushing herself upright.

“There’s been another murder.”

Jo froze mid-movement, her hand tangled up in the blankets that she'd been shifting off of her. She didn't know what else she could have been expecting really, had no doubt that Yaz would have been woken up for anything else, and Yaz wouldn't have continued to pass it down to Jo if it had been something lesser, or if it could have waited until they'd met up in a couple of hours anyway.

So, another murder - one that must have at least a passing resemblance to the one they'd been working the day before. Two murders in as many days. Her mind went to a serial killer at once, to the facts she'd learned from books, the knowledge, and profiles she'd worked on in the recent past. She held it there, hovering just out of focus for her to look through when she'd hung up with Yaz, on the drive to the scene.

“Serial killer?”

“It’s looking that way,” Yaz said. Jo could hear movement on the other end, the rustle of fabric, likely Yaz getting herself ready for another long day. Jo swallowed thickly. “I’m about to head out the door, I got the address.”

Jo scrambled to grab a piece of paper, scribbled it down.

“See you there,” she said. Yaz hung up and Jo rolled out of bed, her heart pounding.

\--

Yaz had slept, thankfully. Not quite enough to ease away the pain that had been aching deep inside her, but enough to leave her functioning again, enough that she felt bad about having to call Jo before the sun had risen. She sighed, slipped on her boots, and laced them up. She'd get a coffee on the way...she'd get herself and Jo a coffee on the way - it was the least she could do considering she'd been the one to have to pull her out of sleep, to wake her up with such awful news.

It was their job, of course. She had no reason to feel guilty, but the thought of Jo spending another day freezing didn't settle right inside her mind. It was just a coffee, coffee for a co-worker. People did that all the time.

Yaz let out a long exhale. The sleep hadn't done near enough to settle the pull Jo seemed to have on her, but even if she couldn't get rid of it just yet, she knew how to push it off. She could ignore it until it faded on its own.

Grabbing her keys, Yaz headed out into the hall. It was quiet, so early in the morning, and she preferred it that way. She locked up, slipped into the empty elevator, and leaned against the wall until the door opened the lobby. She headed out the parking lot, lit up in patches by the lights scattered around the edges. Her car was on the far end due to coming home late yet again, and when she reached it she froze at once. Her stomach felt heavy, and she was thankful she hadn't tried to eat before leaving. Yaz looked around her quickly, moved more into the light, yanking out her phone. She redialed the last number, and when Jo picked up she asked her to come quickly before hanging up and pulling out her flashlight, her gun.


End file.
